Requiem for a President

by Mark Rock

Joe Biden could have inspired and led a revitalization of the Democratic Party.

Instead, he spent four years building the foundation for its undoing.

Presidential Missteps

In his 2008 book The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder, the late L.A. County Deputy District Attorney Vincent Bugliosi calls for George W. Bush to be arrested and charged with Homicide.

Bugliosi, who successfully prosecuted Charles Manson, makes the case that, because he led the United States into war under what he knew were false pretenses, Bush is directly responsible for the deaths of the United States service members killed during the Iraq campaign.

All but the most terminally naïve didn’t need to be told that Bugliosi’s efforts were pristinely Quixotic: Thirty-four years earlier, despite convincing evidence that his oval office predecessor was aware of, and likely involved in, the Watergate cover-up, Gerald Ford had issued a “full, free, and absolute pardon” to Richard Nixon. More recently, despite having clearly committed perjury and having brazenly obstructed justice during investigations into his improprieties while in office during the 1990s,

Bill Clinton never came close to facing criminal charges.

Presidential immunity - and willful amnesia regarding everything done by those downstream from the chief executive - has been the way of the land since we’ve had a land for it to be the way of. In light of this, the Biden administration’s relentless prosecution and jailing of Trump administration officials, ostensibly for ignoring congressional subpoenas – a transgression preposterously benign in light of the previous examples, and so routine that it would require several pages to enumerate subpoenas ignored by Obama officials alone – is far more than a perfect illustration of the incongruence at work over the past four years: It is one of the key factors as to why Democrats are not enjoying a second term.

The attack on Trump and his supporters, which began at the outset of Biden’s reign and continued throughout his presidency, was perhaps the most apparent misappropriation of priorities in an interminable series of missteps, lapses in strategy, and overall poor judgment that finally culminated in one of the most spectacular reversals of fortune ever seen in American politics.

It didn’t have to be that way. As leader of the Democratic Party, Joe Biden could have approached his presidency as a tempered, moderate Democrat focused on tamping down a radical dynamic growing within his ranks. Through balanced, reasoned, clear-headed discourse, he could have built the foundation for bringing unity to a country that had become beset by alienation and division.

Imagine the following:

January 20, 2021.

Newly Inaugurated President Joe Biden is at the podium, addressing the nation:

… On this day, we are a country divided. Many of you disagree with me, and with those who voted for me. I understand your concerns. Some of you took unexpected actions in service of holding onto the previous administration. One can’t ignore that level of commitment; I certainly cannot – and I will not. Donald Trump might not have been the sort of person I aspire to be, but he was unquestionably a good president. The economy was on solid footing. Inflation was low. The stock market was humming along. Our international position was strong.

President Trump had four years to prove himself and establish a sound record. I stand before you on day one with no record at all. I cannot ask to be worthy of your admiration. Instead, I ask for your faith. Like Barack Obama, I am not a president of a white America, a black America, a Democrat America, or a Republican America. I am president of the United States of America. Continued emphasis on what divides us will continue to divide us and will serve no one. Toward this end, I ask all Americans to join me in pardoning those whose patriotism drove them to extraordinary lengths. To those who protested in our Capitol building on January 6, I speak now: I ask that your passion for your country and your fellow Americans now find a home among those who have already joined me in a united direction for our nation. It is my belief that this is better realized in serving as our shopkeepers, our builders, our teachers, and our neighbors in our communities, rather than from jail cells.

In this one masterful act, Biden would have allayed the fires of division, refocused energy on winning over centrists in the MAGA movement and eliminated the need for a farcical January 6^th committee that made a Star Chamber seem credible by comparison.

Instead, almost immediately following his inauguration, Biden did a hard pivot away from a rational, pragmatic center, and toward the unhinged leftist coalition occupying the far reaches of his party. In the months that followed, rather than working tirelessly to assuage a divided people – a lot of whom weren’t entirely convinced that Trump’s election loss was legitimate - the Biden administration doubled down with ruthless measures against “MAGA Republicans” and others it deemed “threats.” Widespread arrests were carried out against, and Draconian jail sentences were imposed on, citizens who participated in the January 6^th protests.

This merciless pursuit juxtaposed jarringly with Kamala Harris having all but encouraged violence and destruction during the BLM riots in June of 2020. While Americans watched their major cities endure out-of-control looting and arson, Harris went on television to announce that those taking to the streets “shouldn’t let up.” Earlier that month, she had encouraged, via Twitter, donations to a bail fund for those who committed crimes during riots in Minneapolis.

In having put the law-abiding populace squarely in the crosshairs of the most radical sector of the Biden administration’s supporters, Harris’ actions weren’t a mere smack in the face to those rotting in D.C. jails for strolling around the Capitol, nor to the larger half of the country that voted for Trump: it was a jolting shot of reality that alarmed citizens of all persuasions who simply didn’t want their neighborhood grocery store burned to the ground.

Irresponsible, militant rhetoric manifested in proclamations that were clearly designed to kindle grievance, facilitating a divisiveness that would eventually engulf the entire nation. As but one example, in a 2023 address to Howard University graduates, Biden proclaimed that the greatest terrorist threat faced by America was “white supremacy.” This sort of inflammatory, dangerous drivel perfectly illustrated how, at every turn, Biden threw fuel onto already incendiary narratives and then stood by while the inevitable conflagrations took hold.

The promise of Biden’s inaugural address - “I will fight as hard for those who did not support me as for those who did” – withered and fell as increasingly acrimonious actions and bombast left no doubt that his every intention was to not only allow, but to focus on and promote, four years of an all out offensive on the values and concerns of at least half the country. From race-baiting to a vague assault on American nationalism, highly divisive tactics lobbed by the same people who called for the obliteration of the police came to be equated by large swaths of the American middle with an all-inclusive attack - not merely on their principles and concerns, but on their very safety and well-being.

With increasing trepidation, they saw how, on Biden’s watch, government institutions ranging from the military to the post office became proving grounds for unworkable activist agendas unrelated to the important missions of ensuring a healthy national fabric. Meanwhile, the intelligence agencies and partisan attorneys general that should have been protecting them spent their time and taxpayer money waging attacks on the reputations and freedoms of the Administration’s political rivals.

All the while, through a series of erratic appointments, Biden’s cabinet increasingly boasted not unbridled competence or proven track records, but rather a series of identity-based “firsts”, alienating those who already harbored doubts and reinforcing the resolve of those who believed that the system was rigged against them. Rather than uniting the people, by 2024 these efforts had widened and deepened the gulf between Americans into an unbridgeable chasm. It will likely be a long while before Americans take a chance on another Democratic administration.

May you, Joe Biden, pray for the charity afforded others who used the office of the presidency to cloak their indiscretions - despite your absence of compassion toward those now in a position to avail such leniency. May history judge you not solely by your failings - but with an eye toward the benefit you brought our country by leaving no doubt that harmony and persecutions can never be mutually inclusive. Most of all, may all Americans never forget the most valuable lesson four years of your leadership availed us: whether overtly, disguised with euphemistic slogans, or simply justified as political opportunism, the American people will never tolerate governance that seeks to exploit our differences.

Mark Rock was raised in Canada, graduated from the University of Oregon, and did post-graduate work at Portland’s Neurological Sciences Institute. A reformed Democrat, he uses lyricism and poetics to guide others to enlightenment. He loves his family, Rock and Roll, and Santa Barbara.